


No Rest for the Wicked

by manic_intent



Category: Grand Theft Auto V
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, He'll probably come out of all this needing more therapy rather than less, M/M, That AU where Michael never meets Amanda, and his Trousers of Time moment takes place in a two bit coin laundromat, with Trevor Philips of all people
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-24
Updated: 2014-03-12
Packaged: 2017-12-30 08:48:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,129
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1016570
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/manic_intent/pseuds/manic_intent
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Years down the road, Michael will blame their First Time on adrenaline, alcohol and homebrew drugs, and Trevor will smile his cruel and merciless twist of a smile and say nothing. It is, Michael thinks, possibly the only form of tenderness that Trevor will ever pay him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Have you guys seen this pic of Steven Ogg (Trevor's voice actor)? Because, _damn_.
> 
> **Warning:** I'm not sure how much fic I can write - I'm caught up in a few other creative projects atm - but I'll try to finish this fic. No promises though.
> 
> Title from Cage the Elephant's No Rest for the Wicked - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3IA__plcFa0

I.

Years down the road, Michael will blame their First Time on adrenaline, alcohol and homebrew drugs, and Trevor will smile his cruel and merciless twist of a smile and say nothing. It is, Michael thinks, possibly the only form of tenderness that Trevor will ever pay him.

They're in a coin-operated laundromat, the last customers winding into the tail end of a bitterly cold night: the wind howls through this no-name town in the ass end of North Yankton like a knife. It's so cold that the tiny laundromat with its whirring driers seem to do fuck all for comfort, and they're freezing in their underpants and coats while the few clothes they own in the world go round and round with cheap suds and gray water, and then Trevor's staring into the howling wind outside the rattling door and grinning, all of a sudden, his eyes sharp and bright.

"What?" Michael demands gruffly. He rubs his hands again awkwardly and tries not to think of his stomach cramping from hunger pangs. If suffering is meant to be character building, his character's probably the size of the fucking Empire States Building by now. The thought of it makes his lips twitch, and Trevor swings his bright, mad grin towards him.

"What?" Trevor imitates him, pitching it high, and Michael bares his teeth. 

"Cut that out. What are you, twelve?"

Trevor snorts, straightening out against the dryer that he's been leaning against. All that the string of bad heists they've attempted has had to show on Trevor is the leaner cut to his frame; he's still ropey and tall and handsome the way only deadly things are handsome, especially stripped down - as efficiently and as beautifully designed as a well-made rifle and far more dangerous. Michael's a little jealous. A diet of fuck-all and cigarettes has left only yellowing fingernails as its mark on his own natural flab. 

A year into their lives as serious outlaws and Trevor looks the part. Michael could probably still pass as the fat kid from next door. 

"Might be that I'm wondering why we're spending the last of our cash washing our clothes instead of getting warm and drunk and laid, _Mikey_."

" _You_ didn't have to come along," Michael points out irritably. Now that Trevor's mentioned it, he _does_ feel ridiculous, waiting for his clothes to dry in the middle of the night while standing in just his underwear and his coat. 

"Aww, no need to get all _tetchy_ ," Trevor drawls, and he may look playful but Michael knows better: hell does he _ever_. The cops probably haven't yet found the body of the last damned soul whom had taken Trevor's playfulness at face value: Michael personally hadn't thought that anyone could do what Trevor had done to that poor bastard just with a pencil. 

Trevor steps closer, and Michael straightens up - his left hand, in the deep pockets of his coat, closes over his banged up S&W '4006. Trevor's smile widens, shows his teeth - he _knows_ , crazy bastard, and he steps closer anyway, up until he's crowding Michael against the humming dryer and Michael can smell them both, rank from far too many days spent living out of a jacked Mustang with no hygiene to speak of. 

" _Tee_ ," Michael snaps, but Trevor hums and nuzzles his shoulder, huffing, an animal scenting, and he doesn't budge when Michael sucks in a breath and shoves at him. "Hey," Michael tries, then, " _Hey!_ " when Trevor tugs open their coats, wraps his heavy arms around his ribs tightly and holds on, skin to skin; he can feel Trevor's heartbeat in a slow pulse against his chest, and Trevor's shoulders are shaking - the crazy asshole is _laughing_.

"Hey," He tries again, soothingly this time, uncertain. Michael had learned the best early lessons of his life from the hard flat of his alcoholic fuckhead father's hand, and the rest of it in prison, but none of it had really prepared him to deal with Trevor Philips. "Tee. C'mon, Tee, stop fucking around-" 

"Now we're warm," Trevor's breath is hot against the side of his neck. "Relax. Nobody's gonna come in this late."

Michael grudgingly concedes the point. He's tired, and sometimes when Trevor gets like this it's easier and less destructive to just go with the flow until something else distracts him into a different line of mayhem. And as Trevor-Philips-related shenanigans usually went, this was actually… nice. No one was being stabbed in the eyeballs with a pencil. 

At least, not yet. 

"Can't get drunk here with nothing but soapy water," Trevor rumbles thoughtfully, and Michael catches on with a start to the rest of Trevor's insane thought process - he can feel Trevor's cock getting hard against his hip, what the _fuck_. "But I think we can manage getting laid, eh?"

"Er," Michael blinks, slowly. "What?"

"Get with the _program_ , Mikey," Trevor drawls, and his voice is whisky-warm under the shell of Michael's ear; he bumps his hips forward pointedly. 

" _Here_?"

"Nobody's coming in here this late at night. At least," Trevor amends, "Nobody more dangerous than _us_. We're in a no-name town in the fuckhole end of North Yankton. What's there to be scared of, huh? Coked up mechanics and diner waitresses?"

"I'll rather not be run out of town in the middle of the night on escalating misdemeanours," Michael mutters, but he's getting hard, too. It's been a while, and his pulse kicks up when Trevor huffs against his neck and drags his teeth over the skin. This, Michael thinks wearily, this _here_ is the real problem with Trevor. It's not enough that he's clearly several cards short of an average sanity deck - his particular brand of crazy is also highly infectious. 

Trevor grunts as Michael shifts his hips, coming up flush against him. It's not comfortable like this, dry and with the cheap cotton of their boxers between them, but it's too cold for much else and neither of them offer to make things easier. Trevor gets his teeth into Michael's neck again, harder this time, despite Michael's irritated growl and pointed shoves at his shoulder, but after a while, he gives, tipping back his chin. 

It's - in a way, it's not _bad_ , like this, pressed with his lower back and hips against a humming dryer and warm, Trevor's big, rough hands high over his waist; insane as it is the lust between them is raw and clean and Michael's panting as it builds, bucking harder, and Trevor meets him with a muffled moan and a thrust. His boxers are getting damp and it's better like this, somehow; he gets a hand clamped over the back of Trevor's neck and the other clawed over his hip and they go from rocking against each other to some crazy one-fuck-uppery, because everything has to be a competition with Trevor, and they're both panting and bitten and scored with each other's nails by the time they're done. Michael first, Trevor second, and Trevor smirks through bared teeth and kisses Michael mockingly on the side of his mouth, gets a palm shoved against the flat of his chin for his trouble. 

"Happy now?" Michael pants. He's sticky and the sweat he's worked up is starting to cool and grow chilly over his skin, but he's warm, for now, sated. Trevor grins at him, and the devil's own mischief is in his eyes, and Michael straightens, wary, but Trevor only shrugs and turns away to check his dryer. 

"I saved up a bit over in the last town," Trevor rummages in the pockets of his coat, then pulls out a tight, small wad of cash, tied with a rubber band, tossing it to Michael. "It's your birthday in an hour or so, ain't it? There's a strip club in town, and I know how you like your strippers. Go get laid." 

Michael blinks, slowly. He turns the cash over in his hands, once, then again. "Really?"

Trevor rolls his eyes. "Really _really_ , Mikey. Sure, a town like this, maybe the strippers are still cheap enough to have real boobs, but they'll still be your type: _buy-a-ble_."

Michael snorts. He's tempted. He's seen the strip club, on their way to the laundromat. A couple of girls had been smoking out the back, on break, and there had been a pretty young redhead, probably about his age. He pockets the money, fumbles the roll, and ends up groping for it around the barrel of his S&W, and his battered conscience rears its head, briefly. Only a short while back, he had been more than ready to shoot Trevor, given enough provocation. 

His partner in crime might be a sociopath, Michael concedes, but he's... well. Trevor's still his partner. "Where are you going after this?"

"Me?" Trevor looks a little surprised that he'd asked. "Sack out in the car, obviously."

"It's a bit cold for that, ain't it?"

"We've been through worse," Trevor points out, and it's right: they have. They've gone through a blizzard, even, half-buried under the snow with the heater dying, and if Lester hadn't somehow tracked them down and shown up- "That time over in Baize," Trevor adds, as though reading his mind, then he smirks. "I thought that you were going to shit yourself."

"I was not," Michael retorts, irked. 

"C'mon, you were _scar-ed_."

"Maybe a little. Normal people would be scared," Michael points out, defensively.

"Normal people wouldn't have thought that it would have been a _great_ idea to rob a jewellery store during a blizzard warning because the weather would be so bad that the cops wouldn't show up just for a robbery."

"And they didn't show up, did they?"

"Because the jewellery thieves had a high chance of dying in the snow and all they would've had to do is get the loot off our frozen bodies," Trevor notes dryly. 

"I don't know why you're bitching about that one, it was one of the successful ones," Michael mutters. "A successful robbery is a good robbery."

"Except that Lester's contact stiffed us on the sale and we got jack shit."

"It's a learning curve for everyone." Michael retorts. "And he _did_ dig us out of all that snow."

The dryers whirl to a stop, and Trevor pulls his open, stepping out of his soiled boxers and using the sodden fabric to wipe himself down before changing into his washed clothes, lean muscle swallowed up once again by faded, ill-fitting cottons with odd prints. "What?" Trevor demands, frowning, eyeing Michael as he shoves the rest of the clean clothes - and the filthy boxers - into his pack.

"Just wondering," Michael notes mildly, "Usually you just wear out your clothes until they're unusable and then buy new ones. This is the first time I've seen you come along to wash your stuff."

"Wanted to see what the novelty was," Trevor drawls, and flashes his stained teeth; Michael frowns at him, and eventually the smirk drops, and Trevor picks up his bag, about to head out.

"Did you follow me here just to - well, just to-"

"Look, Mikey," Trevor notes, at the door, "If I knew that you were gonna take getting your rocks off with a friend so _personally_ , I probably would've done it somewhere less freezing-my-balls-off cold."

"I didn't know that you were... into guys," Michael says slowly.

Trevor rolls his eyes. "Let's have this conversation in the morning when you've gotten your pipes cleaned out by a stripper, all right?"

And they'll never have the conversation, Michael realizes, with a touch of prescience. If he goes to the strip club, he'll find himself an easy woman, probably the redhead; he'll have forgotten this by the morning, because when they lie low they avoid each other for most of it, just to be safe, as much as that might not count for much in a town as small as this one. When they're back on the road to cook up another scheme with Lester, it'll be days down the track and Trevor would be caught up with a different flavour of mayhem. This is it. 

And maybe it'll be better this way. Step back, walk away, carry on business as usual. There's no tenderness to Trevor in this aspect, no humanity, wired down with as little sentimentality as other basic human functions. But still-

The money, his hands, the gun. Michael sighs. "Tee, I'm tired. Wait up." He changes hurriedly, though he shoves the dirty boxers in a different part of his pack. "Let's just get a room at the motel, where it's warm." 

Trevor eyes him thoughtfully, then he lifts a shoulder into another shrug. He's silent all the way, even as Michael pays for a room in the ratty old motel at the side of the highway, quiet as they climb up frost-slippery stairs along the outer walkway to their room. The heater makes a weird chittering sound but it works, and after a while, the bedroom's actually pleasantly warm; although the bed's going to be a narrow fit it's nothing they've never done before. 

He gets poked in the nose when he gets his shoes off and settles down next to Trevor, though, and Michael swats at Trevor's hand irritably. "Stop that."

"This is not what I expected," Trevor notes, and prods him in the shoulder, unrepentant. "You're not going to get all weepy on me, are you?"

"What for?"

Trevor looks him over silently, then he turns around and onto his back, staring up at the ceiling. "Seems like something you would do. Quarter life sexual identity crisis and all that."

"Fuck you, Tee," Michael mutters, "I'm trying to be nice."

"Ah, I see where the confusion might've started," Trevor drawls, and turns over, as if he's about to sleep.

Michael lies awake in the dark, waiting for Trevor's breathing to even out. It's something he's always done, out of instinct, if nothing else: wait for the certified sociopath to drop off first. Tonight, however, Trevor's breathing doesn't slow; instead, he rolls back over and squirms closer, and starts to chuckle in a rough, low rumble when Michael makes an irritated sound and pushes at his shoulder. 

"So," Trevor says, into the dark.

"What?"

"I'm not 'into guys'," Trevor says dryly, and there's something there, edged sharp in his voice, something like the careful tension of a wild dog, waiting to spring. Michael has good instincts: it's probably the only reason why he's still alive - and he forces himself to breathe in, normally, breathe out.

"All right."

"What I'm 'into', just so that we're clear," Trevor continues, as though he hasn't spoken, "Is getting off. Could've been a stripper, could've been you, could've been a pillow."

"Nice to see that I rank higher than a pillow," Michael drawls, and Trevor laughs, the stubble of his chin scraping briefly over Michael's shoulder, and this time the mocking kiss is pressed briefly over his ear. It tickles, and Michael flinches, and they end up shoving at each other and growling and all the awkwardness is gone; Michael has never met anyone who had fit so easily against the serrated edges of his blackened soul as Trevor. 

Sometimes, it frightens him a little.

II.

There's enough left in Trevor's little birthday cache to get them both a big, greasy breakfast over in the nearby diner, and it's an unusual enough indulgence that they take their time over it, savouring every oily inch of the charred eggs and blackened toast. Trevor doesn't bring up the laundromat, and Michael decides to drop it. Besides, the coffee's thick and strong enough to jumpstart the dead, and Michael's in a good mood. It's a decent way to start his birthday: the motel shower had been thin, but hot, and he's clean, his clothes are clean, and the coffee is nice and scalding.

He doesn't ask for much out of life nowadays, he thinks - and the thought makes him grin a little. Trevor arches an eyebrow from across the greasy table, and Michael repeats the sentiment out loud. Trevor rolls his eyes.

"You've got more ambition than that."

"I'm a realist, Trevor," Michael jerks his thumb out of the stained window, to a distant speck of gray set against the knee-deep snow. Some poor bastard's got a hell of a shovelling job to do on his driveway. "Can you really see me settling down somewhere, white picket fence, family, cute dog?"

"If that's the best thing that you think that life can come up with, then you're more fucked in the head than I thought."

"Well then, what do _you_ think is the best?" Michael frowns. "Upgrade from running between motel to motel to hotels? Five diamond whores instead of local strippers?"

"Once we get some capital," Trevor finishes dicing up his toast and starts shovelling crunchy disembowelled bits of bread and egg into his mouth, talking as he does, "I was thinking we could branch out. Go into business."

"Selling what?" Michael asks skeptically, "Pieces of life advice, maybe? 'Ten ways to fuck a guy up with a pencil'?"

"Why d'you have to be so _down_ on everything?" Trevor scowls, hesitates, then adds, "And it was _eleven_ ways. I was feeling the _flow_ that day. Being _creative_."

Michael grimaces, and takes a scaldingly hot gulp of coffee to will away the recall. "I'm still waiting for your bright idea, Tee."

"I was _thinking_ ," Trevor scowls, "That perhaps there are other aspects of the... socially deregulated free market... that we have yet to explore in full in an entrepreneurial basis." 

"You mean, get into more trouble than we're already in? Sure. Great. I'm listening."

Trevor glowers at him briefly, as though trying to gauge whether Michael is being sarcastic, then he sniffs. "We're already in enough trouble to land us in the Big House for a long time, Mikey. The way I see it, we can only stay _out_ of jail if we never get caught - something that's always possible, or if we cut a deal - something that isn't possible, or if we become too big and dangerous to get caught." 

"So, become a syndicate?" Michael says dryly. "'Townley and Philips Inc.'?" 

"I was thinking 'Philips and Townley'," Trevor amends, "Seeing as in this case, I'm the ideas guy, and you're the fucking wet blanket."

"Hey, I'm open to it," Michael admits, "I'm as tired of running as you are." 

"Oh, I don't know, I thought maybe all the police attention was boosting your self-esteem-"

"Fuck you," Michael growls, and although they bicker their way out of the diner, Trevor's idea has taken root. It's the bare bones of a possibility, of course, but Trevor has a point. They can't live like this forever, and there's only three roads forward from here. 

First, however, they needed capital. Another jewellery store, maybe? Or a-

"I'm thinking," Trevor notes, as they saunter back to where their car's hidden, through the iced up pavements and the snow-crusted sidewalks, powdered over again so quickly even after a plough, "A bank. You've done a bank job before, yeah?"

"Got caught, sure."

" _Eventually_. You got caught _eventually_ ," Trevor corrects. "You still got away with it the first time. And we're better at dodging heat now than we used to. _And_ we have Lester."

"True." Lester's been a godsend. His cut's large, admittedly, and sometimes his luck with fences isn't great, but there's been no one like Lester in the art of forward planning. "Bank jobs are a bit different. Lot more recon. Lots more planning." 

"There's a union branch out west," Trevor shoves his hands into his pockets, breathes a thick cloud of steam out into the icy air, "I was thinking we could drive down. Take a peek."

"You've been sitting on this grand idea of yours for a while," Michael concludes, surprised. "Never said a word of it before."

"There're a few ways forward from where we are now," Trevor bares his teeth, and it's not so much a smile but a promise, "And I was never so sure where you were gonna turn, _partner_."

Michael stiffens up, but Trevor just keeps walking, and after a moment, he has to jog over to keep up.


	2. Chapter 2

I.

The Union bank robbery is a sort-of-mostly-success. Success, in that they actually get away with the money for a change. Sort-of, being that they're both shot up enough to need decent drugs and the sort of black market medical attention that costs time and money. The 'mostly' bit, in Michael's opinion, counts by way of the fact that they're alive at all.

"Stop fucking moping," Trevor growls, not for the first time. They're holed up in the middle of a sand-blown meth-dealing armpit of a dead God of Famine, in Michael's opinion, in some shithole trailer owned by a friend of a friend of Trevor's. 

"I didn't know that you did friends," Michael keeps saying, because he's dopey on the good stuff and he's managed to roll onto the threadbare couch before Trevor had finished crawling his way up into the trailer. "Friends. _Friends_. I thought that I was your only friend."

"Well, you thought wrong," Trevor snaps, from where he's 'resting' on the floor, belly to the metal and cheek mashed in a pool of his spittle. "I have lots of friends. Some of them I even like."

"I thought I was your _only_ friend," Michael repeats sadly.

"God, you're such a sad little fuck," Trevor sighs. "In way more ways than one."

"Am not."

"Are too."

"Fucking _not_."

"Are fucking _too_." 

Michael isn't exactly sure when the verbal bandying gets physical, especially since they're both doped to their eyebrows, but somehow Trevor ends up on the couch and they're rubbing against each other and it's just as insanely, wildly _bad_ as the first time, but Michael still keens as he comes in his three-day-old pants and Trevor grunts, laughing low between them, and sinks his teeth into Michael's neck.

The morning would have been awkward if they weren't both fighting to get their painkillers, and it's actually weeks down the road, when they're both ambulatory and fairly off drugs that Michael thinks to say, "So, about us."

"Oh, for fuck's sake," Trevor glowers at him, "Stop ruining everything." 

With that graceful opinion of Michael's attempts to be remotely sensitive, Michael decides to leave Trevor be. The conviction lasts about six hours, two cigarettes, a bag of decent weed and two beers, and this time it's _spectacularly_ bad, what with Trevor getting his fingers up Michael's arse and not really bothering to spread him. 

He's high enough that when Trevor actually does shove into him, Michael doesn't really feel it, and they end up wrestling more than fucking on the terrible stinking couch of the shithole trailer, breaking the remaining springs and probably rousing all the neighbors. Michael can't really stop the high, wounded noises he makes when Trevor finally gets his shit together and nudges for his prostate and Trevor's snap-snarling through it all, like some mad animal, huffing and growling in his throat as he pounds Michael into the couch, God. 

Lester calls them a week later with a tentative job, and ends up throwing them out of his hideout when Trevor copping a feel of Michael's arse in Lester's kitchen leads to some heavy grinding up against Lester's sink. Michael's sorry, Trevor isn't. They get the job anyway, and this time they do it right. Proper research, proper team, decent planning. The jewellery shop never knew what hit it. 

This time, instead of using the money to get high, Michael insists on investing. "It's _your_ dream, Tee," he reminds Trevor, when Trevor bitches and groans and wheedles. "Remember? _Your_ idea." 

Over time, Michael's learned that this is the best way to handle Trevor. It doesn't always work, of course: Trevor isn't stupid, and he can smell manipulation a mile off if it isn't subtle, but eventually Trevor grumbles and agrees and they use the money to fund better weapons and their next job, a big-time money-changer's gig.

After that they lay low for a while, in a two-bit Dead God's Armpit town in Nevada, in yet another trailer. "Why don't we shack up in Alaska next time?" Michael complains. "Why do we have to hide out somewhere that feels like I'm being broiled alive?"

"That's because all your fat's starting to cook off you, like rendering bacon," Trevor shoots back, curled around the tiny rattling fan in their tiny oven of a 'borrowed' trailer. "S'good for you, Mikey. Take it like a man."

At least it's far too hot to fuck, and Michael spends all their downtime miserable, a perfect frame of mind with which to start building their business enterprise. They're not going to go the way of a mafia, oh no: too much detail, Michael tells Trevor, when he's feeling a little more expansive. It'll be just the two of them and maybe Lester. They'll subcontract out work if they think they need to. 

"Then how're we gonna make people sit up and pay out?" Trevor grunts. His eyes are closed, but his long fingers are curling and uncurling on the rat-eaten carpet: he's listening. 

Michael sighs. "You'll like this bit." 

Trevor does.

By the time they hit their second meth lab gang outfit, Trevor's upgraded from an eleven step pencil trick to thirteen. Somehow, it _works_ : their smooth criminal/psycho criminal double act. Or maybe he shouldn't be surprised. All the hellhounds of war have nothing on Trevor during a rampage.

II.

They're three years older and thirty times richer by the time they shift from the small time to the middle time: controlling semi-lucrative gambling and prostitution rings in God's Armpit townships. They don't quite have the muscle to move in on cities yet, but they're getting there. Lester's full time as the brains, but their little gig's still better known as Philips and Townley Inc, despite Michael's best efforts.

Trevor remembers the anniversary of the Big Idea, or so he calls it, no matter how much Michael rolls his eyes. This time round they hole up in a nice hotel in Vegas: a little bit dangerous, given the territory - but Trevor's in a devil of a mood and Michael knows the warning signs. He lets Trevor fuck him hard enough against the glass of the floor-to-ceiling window to shake it, then he gets his back against the bed, with Trevor tearing at the sheets and laughing his brittle, jackal's laugh, like madness come calling, and it's perfect, champagne breakfast, desperate getaway. 

"Told you they'll find us," Michael shouts at Trevor, still half-dressed and firing his SMG through the smashed side window of a jacked Mercedes at the gang pursuit.

"Was counting on it," Trevor shoots back, and smirks as he steps on the pedal; the car slams Michael against the seat and he nearly loses the gun out of the window.

They slow down back on home turf, out in the desert, in an old motel that they'd bought up and done up, kitted with proper air-conditioning and facilities, reinforced walls, armoury, generator and whatever else Lester needed for his All Knowing Master act. Trevor slouches against the bar as Michael pours them both a shot of Jack Daniels, and his glance is heavy-lidded, narrow-eyed.

"I know that look," Michael tells him, before Trevor starts. "Answer's no."

"You're a fucking wet blanket."

"All right, let's hear it then."

"I was thinking," Trevor purrs, as he sidles over, and it's unfair how Trevor Philips can still look like sex after a couple of hours' hard driving and a no-coffee breakfast. "That we should hit up a bank again. For old time's sake."

"What's the point?" Michael frowns. "We make more money in our usual gig than a bank job, and there's a lot less heat."

" _Exactly_ ," Trevor says triumphantly. "All the fun's gone out of life."

"You can't be serious," Michael stares at him. "We were _shot at_ all the way home." He hesitates. "Wait, was that what you wanted all along when you said we were going to Vegas?"

" _Ding!_ Give the man a hundred dollars." 

"Oh, I can't fucking believe you," Michael grumbles. "I _knew_ it."

" _And_ you ran with it anyway. C'mon, _Mikey_ , where's the psychopath in you that I know so well? Huh? You wanna kick back when we're still young?"

"We're not exactly running a string of 7-11s here," Michael scowls. "We're balancing a delicate act of being _just_ threatening enough for all our little 'outsourced' employees to pay up, but not threatening enough for them to band up against us, remember?"

"Same old, same old. It's been _years_ since I stole anything firsthand. I'm _bored_." 

"But this was your dream," Michael tries, because sometimes that works, and Trevor rolls his eyes and lets out a deep sigh.

"Go on. Rub it in. I've paid the price of success."

"What's so fun about bank jobs?" Michael attempts another angle. "They work the same way. High risk, relatively low return. What about we try something else, if you're that bored? Something new?"

"New?" Trevor straightens up, cocking his head. "What? Kidnapping? Stealing a national treasure? Blowing up the Empire State Building?"

"Ah... no. Let me think about it, all right? I'll talk to Lester," Michael adds desperately, when Trevor starts to slouch again. "It'll be fun, I promise."

"It better," Trevor drawls, which is how they go from being mid time crooks to trying to go big time in Los Santos. They mop up the Lost in no time, but Los Santos is something else: the entrenched gangs fight dirty and fight fierce, and then the FIB gets involved. 

"On one hand," Michael tells Trevor, as they wait out pursuit within an underground train tunnel, "You're not bored any more, are you?"

"Nope. Mikey, you're awesome." Trevor grins broadly at him. He's soaked with blood to his elbows - other people's blood, not Trevor's - and he's cradling a pump action shotgun against his belly like a baby. "Granted, I thought it was gonna be boring at first, but then the shit really hit the fan, and the fan _exploded_."

"On the other hand," Michael mutters, "We're probably going to be dead soon."

"Aww. That's the old Mikey talking." Trevor scratches at his beard in the dim dankness of the tunnel. "We've got to beat this somehow, y'know. And I think it's my turn to do some of the lifting."

"Lifting?" Michael repeats warily.

"You know, being the _ideas_ man for once," Trevor purrs.

"Oh _no_ , Tee, the _last time_ you wanted to be the _ideas man_ we _blew up half a fucking town!_ "

"Keep your _voice_ down, sugartits," Trevor snuggles close, snuffling along the back of Michael's neck and of _course_ the crazy psychopath is turned on right now, in the middle of waiting out police pursuit and in an old service room that stinks of the souls of dead socks. "Or d'you need something in your mouth?"

God damn him, but he can't help himself when Trevor talks like that. Sometimes Michael thinks that he needs therapy.

III.

They steal a submarine, piss off Merryweather, and come real close to ticking off Lester as well. Surprisingly, it's the Wrath of Lester that finally gets Trevor to come to his senses.

Unfairly enough, _Michael_ also gets caught up suffering the brunt of the Wrath of Lester, because apparently he's meant to be the mature half of Philips and Townley Inc, or whatever. Controlling Trevor is like controlling a force of nature - you just have to batten down the hatches, lie back, and hope it doesn't maul you too bad when it's going. Lester doesn't buy it, though. 

"Seriously, Michael," Lester hisses, when Trevor's been sent off on some foraging errand that will hopefully end up with Philips and Townley Inc being in receipt of takeout food and beer, and not a statewide APB or something. "You don't realize that you have a _responsibility_ here."

"I do what?" Michael's slouched in one of Lester's grubby armchairs, in an equally grubby safehouse that Lester maintains in the arse end of Los Santos. "What I what?"

"Don't fake the painkillers talking, Michael, I've known you too long," Lester growls. "You're the only person in the world that Trevor values. Don't you realize how much power you have? And with great power comes great responsibility."

"One," Michael raises a wobbly finger, still pressing an ice pack to his head: another souvenir of a Trevor plan gone spectacularly awry, "Trevor doesn't listen to me. Two, _Trevor doesn't listen to me_. Or anyone."

"Maybe you're too far up your ass moping and you can't see it, but he does, you tit."

"What is it with you and Trevor and that fucking nickname-"

"I'm _telling_ you, Michael. Trevor's the sort of person who wants to make the world burn. _You_ have to watch his access to the matches."

It's a seriously weird thought to contemplate as Trevor arrives with food, still in his contrite psycho puppy mood. Trevor doesn't normally do regret, unless his insane mom is involved, and Michael's bemused enough that his stomach doesn't do ugly flips over the greasy Chinese take-out and cheap beer. 

"Trevor," Michael says finally, when they're on their way home, in the fuck ugly red truck that Trevor insisted on stealing once off some deadbeat trailer park and has lovingly never let go of, "Would you really burn the world down if you could?"

"My god, you're the saddest fucker in the world," Trevor retorts, which Michael decides is probably a 'no'. "You get so _emo_ when you're injured, and you're barely scratched this time. Lighten up!" 

"People _normally_ don't get pepped up when injured," Michael points out irritably.

"Seriously, Mikey. What will it take. You wanna get drunk? Go to a skin joint? Smoke some weed?"

"Is that all we do for fun nowadays?" Michael asks sadly, and he _is_ getting depressed after all, fuck. Damn the painkillers.

" _No_ ," Trevor rolls his eyes, "That's just us killing time. We have _fun_ on the _job_. That's the whole point of us doing what we do rather than making _more_ money pushing paper in a bank."

That, Michael decides, is true. "Tee, I don't know what I'll do without you."

"You'll probably have retired early in a fuck-off house spending your money on therapy," Trevor says instantly. "Don't get sappy, Michael, you know that I'll need to shoot something."

"I think," Michael says, because he talks too much when he's dopey, "Maybe we should try a really, really, really big history books sort of big score. Like... like the Union Depository. The _big one_."

Trevor goes thoughtful and silent, which should have been a warning sign all by itself if Michael had been a little less bruised and battered. "That's a _great_ idea, Mikey. And utterly bugfuck crazy and impossible, but a _great_ idea."

"Nothing's impossible," Michael declares, which he regrets two days later when he's finally off painkillers, because Trevor loves bugfuck crazy ideas the way he obsessively loves shotguns.

"It was just an idea," Michael protests, which swiftly turns to, "All right, I'll talk to Lester," which becomes, "See, it's not doable... _yet_." 

"Yet," Trevor notes, with glee.

"Maybe when we're older, and have better guns, and stuff."

"Stuff," Trevor repeats, this time with rolled eyes. "I've got a suggestion. You see how a lot of businesses and shit like to take in new blood for new ideas? I'm thinking, maybe we could use an intern. We can feed him on leftover coffee and takeout."

"And where are we going to get an intern?" Michael asks suspiciously. "We're not exactly a phonebook sort of industry."

"We could kidnap some-"

" _No._ "

Trevor sulks. "Fine, then you handle the details." 

"I don't know," Michael mutters, "Landing that kinda psychological damage on some kid-"

"You seriously think we can inflict more damage than the Internet?"

"Tee, you have inflicting damage down to an art form," Michael tells him. "Fine. We'll find someone."

"Today an intern, tomorrow the Depository," Trevor decides, satisfied. 

" _Not_ -"

"Of _course_ I meant that _figuratively_ , you sad old fuck," Trevor retorts, though he grins his lazy, dangerous grin as he says this, and Michael's retort sinks back down, unspoken, as the chaos that Trevor is calls again to the blackened parts of Michael's soul.

Lester's probably right, Michael thinks: it's likely that Trevor _does_ listen to him. But Lester's figured one thing wrong after all - if Trevor wants to burn the world down, Michael's gone too far down this road, come too deep with nothing worth holding him back. He'll be right there with Trevor when the match drops, and it'll suit him just right.

**Author's Note:**

> If you'll like to discuss ficbunnies, ideas, or just have a chat, I'm on twitter @manic_intent and tumblr at manic-intent.tumblr.com :)
> 
> Working on closing all my old WIPs. :3 wish me luck!


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